Oceans & Forests Blog

Mark Zuckerberg, unfriend Big Oil!

Posted May. 1, 2013 / Posted by: Adam Russell

Clean energy activists will protest at Facebook HQ at noon today

MENLO PARK, Calif. – A protest today at Facebook headquarters will target founder Mark Zuckerberg’s support for the controversial Keystone XL pipeline and drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Clean energy activists from Friends of the Earth, CREDO, 350.org and others will gather at 1404 Willow Road in Menlo Park to call out Zuckerberg’s funding of a series of TV advertisements promoting construction of the pipeline and opening up the wildlife refuge to oil and gas exploration.

Zuckerberg’s new political action committee, FWD.US, was supposedly founded to support immigration reform, but is running the ads to curry favor with pro-oil members who are on the fence about immigration. Key players in the PAC also include SolarCity Chairman Elon Musk and venture capitalist John Doerr.

Here is a statement from Ross Hammond, senior campaigner at Friends of the Earth, who will be at the protest today.

"It's disappointing that having taken a very public stand for clean, renewable energy, Mark Zuckerberg is now playing the politics of dirty oil. You'd hope the visionary behind Facebook would be looking to the clean energy economy of our future rather than falling for the pipe dreams of the dinosaur fossil fuel industry. Where's the DISLIKE button?”